1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a sliding roof for a vehicle, in particular to an anchor installation structure for a sliding roof for a vehicle.
2. Description of the Related Art
For a conventional sliding roof for a vehicle, there are provided a roof panel that is installed to an opening of a fixed roof, a slider that is installed on the roof panel to slide in the longitudinal direction of the vehicle, thereby to open or close the roof panel in the longitudinal direction, and a guide frame to guide a sliding operation of the slider.
In such a conventional sliding roof system, an open or close operation is carried out such that: as shown in FIG. 9A, a front slider 120 and a driving slider 130, which slide along a guide rail groove 5b of a guide frame 5 in the longitudinal direction of the vehicle, are installed to a panel stay 50 that is attached onto a lower face at the side edge of the roof panel 4. The front slider 120 and the driving slider 130 are provided with cam grooves 120a, 130a, respectively. The panel stay 50 is provided with engagement pins 50a, 50b, respectively, which engage with the respective cam grooves 120a, 130a. 
A cable for a push-pull operation is connected at one end thereof to the driving sliders 130, and this push-pull operation of the cable allows the driving slider 130 to slide. The front slider 120 slides, moving along with the above sliding of the driving slider 130.
From an state of the roof panel 4 in which the roof panel 4 is tilted-up and stays on the rear vehicle side as shown in FIG. 9A, the driving slider 130 slides toward the vehicle front side as shown in FIG. 9B, working along with the driving slider 130, and then the front slider 120 abuts a stopper 70 provided at the front end of the guide rail groove 5b, so as to stop at the stopper 70. From this state, the driving slider 130 further slides toward the vehicle front side, the respective engagement pins 50a, 50b of the panel stay 50 move in the respective cam grooves 120a, 130a of the front slider 120 and the driving slider 130, so that the panel stay 50 descends at the rear portion thereof, and tiltingly moves so that the roof panel 4 is tilted down into a full-closed state.
In such an prior art, there have been problems regarding water-proof property between the movable roof panel and its opening, preventions of wind-whistling and wind-rattling sounds, which are likely to occur when the roof panel tilts up or down. To solve these problems, a means for reducing displacement of the roof panel in the longitudinal direction, which is one of possible causes of these disadvantages, is disclosed in JP 2001-199244A (Paragraphs 0003 to 0007, FIGS. 2 to 5).
In such a sliding roof system in which the roof panel performing an tilting operation, as disclosed in JP 2001-199244A, when the roof panel is in a tilt-up state during the vehicle driving, a lower pressure is created at the upper portion, and air-swirling is occurred at the rear side end of the roof panel, so that force pushes the roof panel upward occurs. This force due to the negative pressure and the air-swirling become greater as the vehicle speed is increased. Thus, when the roof panel is tilted down, particularly when being tilted into a complete closed state, a greater operational load is required to oppose the above-mentioned forces. To counter such a problem, a control scheme to change the operational load is disclosed in JP 2005-153859 A (Claim 1, Paragraphs 0003, 0014, FIG. 1), or JPH03-109123 A (FIG. 3) discloses that a member called as an anchor is installed to the sliding roof system in order to distribute the load onto the roof panel.
Recently, for the purpose of securing an increased opening area of a sliding roof, there have been provided more sliding roofs, having a plurality of roof panels on a fixed roof opening of a vehicle. These roof panels are separately disposed in the lateral direction of the vehicle, with a mechanism to open or close these roof panels. For example, such a sliding roof system includes a twin-panel type sliding roof having two roof panels. Such a sliding roof system having plural roof panels requires a complicated mechanism to move these panels, thus many grooves are provided on each guide rail of the sliding roof, which serve as a moving mechanism.
The anchors of the above-mentioned prior art are required to be separately installed to a vehicle body or guide rails of the vehicle.
The present invention has an object to provide a sliding roof having an anchor installation structure that is suitable for a sliding roof with a plurality of roof panels, and facilitates installing an anchor into a groove of each guide rail with requiring no additional preparations on components to which the anchor is installed.